David Rothkopf is CEO of The Rothkopf Group, a media company that produces podcasts including Deep State Radio, hosted by Rothkopf. TRG also produces custom podcasts for clients including the United Arab Emirates. He is also the author of many books including Running the World: The Inside Story of the National Security Council and the Architects of American Power, Superclass, Power, Inc., National Insecurity, Great Questions of Tomorrow, and Traitor: A History of Betraying America from Benedict Arnold to Donald Trump.
Join us Thursday’s at 8EST for our Weekly Happy Hour Hangout!
Sondra Cosgrove moved to Nevada in 1986 and raised her family in Las Vegas. She earned a PhD in History, with a minor in Cultural Anthropology, from UNLV in 2004 and is currently a history professor at the College of Southern Nevada. At CSN, Sondra teaches U.S., Nevada, and Native American history. She also teaches Latin American Studies at UNLV.
In addition to teaching, Sondra works with the CSN Women’s Alliance to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion. The Women’s Alliance offers programing, services, and advocacy for the institution’s female identifying students, staff, and faculty.
In the community, Sondra serves on many boards and commissions. In addition to being a past president of the League of Women Voters of Nevada, she is the Vice Chair of the Nevada Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, a City of Las Vegas Historic Preservation Commissioner, a board member of the ACLU NV, and a board member of Nevada Women in Trades.
Sondra is currently the Executive Director and Chair of the Board for Vote Nevada. Vote Nevada is a new civic engagement nonprofit that promotes civic participation, legislative advocacy, and advancing civil rights. With a Nevada-specific focus, Vote Nevada addresses our state’s needs with a deep understanding of our culture, history, and governing processes. Vote Nevada is accountable to Nevadans, not to an out-of-state entity or organization.
April Corbin Girnus is an award-winning journalist and deputy editor of Nevada Current. A stickler about municipal boundary lines, April enjoys teaching people about unincorporated Clark County. She grew up in Sunrise Manor and currently resides in Paradise with her husband, three children and one mutt.
Nevada Current is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.
Russ Buettner is an investigative reporter at the New York Times. Since 2016, his reporting has focused on the personal finances of Donald J. Trump, including in-depth articles with Susanne Craig and other Times reporters that revealed the fortune Trump inherited from his father and the record of business failures hidden in twenty years of Trump’s tax returns. Those articles were awarded a Pulitzer Prize and two George Polk awards. Buettner,who joined the Times in 2006, was also a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize in 2012 for articles with Danny Hakim highlighting abuse and neglect in New York’s care of developmentally disabled people. He previously worked on investigations teams at the Daily News in New York and New York Newsday.
Susanne Craig is an investigative reporter at the New York Times. Since 2016, her reporting has focused on the personal finances of Donald J. Trump, including in-depth articles that revealed the fortune Trump inherited from his father and the record of business failures hidden in twenty years of Trump’s tax returns. Those articles were awarded a Pulitzer Prize and two George Polk awards. Craig previously covered Wall Street and served as Albany bureau chief for the Times. Prior to joining the Times in 2010, Craig was a reporter at The Wall Street Journal and The Globe and Mail, Canada’s national newspaper. She is a member of the Order of Canada and serves as an on-air analyst for MSNBC.
From the Pulitzer Prize-winning reporters behind the 2018 bombshell New York Times exposé of then-President Trump’s finances, an explosive investigation into the history of Donald Trump’s wealth, revealing how one of the country’s biggest business failures lied his way into the White House
Soon after announcing his first campaign for the US presidency, Donald J. Trump told a national television audience that life “has not been easy for me. It has not been easy for me.” Building on a narrative he had been telling for decades, he spun a hardscrabble fable of how he parlayed a small loan from his father into a multi-billion-dollar business and real estate empire. This feat, he argued, made him singularly qualified to lead the country. Except: None of it was true. Born to a rich father who made him the beneficiary of his own highly lucrative investments, Trump received the equivalent of more than $500 million today via means that required no business expertise whatsoever.
Drawing on over twenty years’ worth of Trump’s confidential tax information, including the tax returns he tried to conceal, alongside business records and interviews with Trump insiders, New York Times investigative reporters Russ Buettner and Susanne Craig track Trump’s financial rise and fall, and rise and fall again. For decades, he squanders his fortunes on money losing businesses, only to be saved yet again by financial serendipity. He tacks his name above the door of every building, while taking out huge loans he’ll never repay. He obsesses over appearances, while ignoring threats to the bottom line and mounting costly lawsuits against city officials. He tarnishes the value of his name by allowing anyone with a big enough check to use it, and cheats the television producer who not only rescues him from bankruptcy but casts him as a business savant – the public image that will carry him to the White House.
A masterpiece of narrative reporting, Lucky Loser is a meticulous examination spanning nearly a century, filled with scoops from Trump Tower, Mar-a-Lago, Atlantic City, and the set of The Apprentice. At a moment when Trump’s tether to success and power is more precarious than ever, here for the first time is the definitive true accounting of Trump and his money – what he had, what he lost, and what he has left – and the final word on the myth of Trump, the self-made billionaire.
Today’s guest is Political Science Professor Dr Christina Greer and out conversation begins at 30 mins after headlines an clips
The Blackest Question is a Black history trivia game show. Join Dr. Christina Greer as she quizzes some of your favorite entertainers, history makers, and celebrities while engaging in conversations to learn more about important contributions in Black history and Black culture. The Blackest Questions entertains and informs audiences about little-known but essential black history. Topics range from world history, news, sports, entertainment, pop culture, and much more.
Christina Greer is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Fordham University – Lincoln Center (Manhattan) campus. Her research and teaching focus on American politics, black ethnic politics, urban politics, quantitative methods, Congress, New York City and New York State politics, campaigns and elections, and public opinion. Prof. Greer’s book Black Ethnics: Race, Immigration, and the Pursuit of the American Dream (Oxford University Press) investigates the increasingly ethnically diverse black populations in the US from Africa and the Caribbean. She finds that both ethnicity and a shared racial identity matter and also affect the policy choices and preferences for black groups. Professor Greer is currently writing her second manuscript and conducting research on the history of all African Americans who have run for the executive office in the U.S. Her research interests also include mayors and public policy in urban centers. Her previous work has compared criminal activity and political responses in Boston and Baltimore.
Prof. Greer received her BA from Tufts University and her MA, MPhil, and PhD in Political Science from Columbia University.
The Stand Up Community Chat is always active with other Stand Up Subscribers on the Discord Platform.
Join us Thursday’s at 8EST for our Weekly Happy Hour Hangout!
Broadcast, digital and print journalist Carrie Kaufman writes the You’re Overthinking It newsletter on Substack. She has covered the Clark County School District for public radio and The Nevada Voice since 2015. Follow Carrie on Twitter: @CarrieKaufman
I love this from Carrie’s Substack:
“Many journalists, considering themselves above reproach, hiding behind the idea of “objectivity,” (or really, not wanting anyone to call them names) scoffed at Umansky. They continued to report “both sides” journalism, with more than a hint of laziness sprinkled in.
The central theme to this newsletter is that we cannot put ourselves in the middle of peoples’ humanity and the people who want to take that humanity away.
We cannot normalize fascism.
We cannot report without context.
If we do any of those things, we are contributing to the demise of democracy.
My job is to hold journalism to truth to power. It’s to illuminate what it looks like in our everyday lives, with powerful writing and humor. I will do serious stories on everyday power dynamics. I will also look at pop culture, and share personal anecdotes. I invite you to share your experiences with me. Or just share the writing you find here with others.”
Broadcast, digital and print journalist Carrie Kaufman writes the You’re Overthinking It newsletter on Substack. She has covered the Clark County School District for public radio and The Nevada Voice since 2015. Follow Carrie on Twitter: @CarrieKaufman
I love this from Carrie’s Substack:
“Many journalists, considering themselves above reproach, hiding behind the idea of “objectivity,” (or really, not wanting anyone to call them names) scoffed at Umansky. They continued to report “both sides” journalism, with more than a hint of laziness sprinkled in.
The central theme to this newsletter is that we cannot put ourselves in the middle of peoples’ humanity and the people who want to take that humanity away.
We cannot normalize fascism.
We cannot report without context.
If we do any of those things, we are contributing to the demise of democracy.
My job is to hold journalism to truth to power. It’s to illuminate what it looks like in our everyday lives, with powerful writing and humor. I will do serious stories on everyday power dynamics. I will also look at pop culture, and share personal anecdotes. I invite you to share your experiences with me. Or just share the writing you find here with others.”
Maura Quint is a humor writer and activist whose work has been featured in publications such as McSweeneys and The New Yorker. She was named one of Rolling Stone’s top 25 funniest twitter accounts of 2016. When not writing comedy, Maura has worked extensively with non-profits in diverse sectors including political action campaigns, international arts collectives and health and human services organizations. She has never been officially paid to protest but did once find fifteen cents on the ground at an immigrants’ rights rally and wanted to make sure that had been disclosed. She was the co founder and executive director of TaxMarch.org
The human race finds itself again under threat of a rising global fascist movement. In the United States, democracy is under attack by an authoritarian movement that has found fertile ground among the country’s conservative politicians and voters, but similar movements have found homes in the hearts and minds of people all across the globe. To understand the shape, form, and stakes of this assault, we must go back to extract lessons from our past.
Democracy requires a common understanding of reality, a shared view of what has happened, that informs ordinary citizens’ decisions about what should happen, now and in the future. Authoritarians target this shared understanding, seeking to separate us from our own history to destroy our self-understanding and leave us unmoored, resentful, and confused. By setting us against each other, authoritarians represent themselves as the sole solution.
In authoritarian countries, critical examination of those nations’ history and traditions is discouraged if not an outright danger to those who do it. And it is no accident that local and global institutions of education have become a battleground, the authoritarian right’s tip of the spear, where learning and efforts to upend a hierarchal status quo can be put to end by coercion and threats of violence. Democracies entrust schools and universities to preserve a common memory of positive change, generated by protests, social movements, and rebellions. The authoritarian right must erase this history, and, along with it, the very practice of critical inquiry that has so often been the engine of future progress.
In Erasing History, Yale professor of philosophy Jason Stanley exposes the true danger of the authoritarian right’s attacks on education, identifies their key tactics and funders, and traces their intellectual roots. He illustrates how fears of a fascist future have metastasized, from hypothetical threat to present reality. And he shows that hearts and minds are won in our schools and universities—places, he explains, that democratic societies across the world are now ill-prepared to defend against the fascist assault currently underway.
Deeply informed and urgently needed, Erasing History is a global call to action for those who wish to preserve democracy—in America and abroad—before it is too late.
Before coming to Yale in 2013, I was Distinguished Professor in the Department of Philosophy at Rutgers University. I have also been a Professor at the University of Michigan (2000-4) and Cornell University (1995-2000). My PhD was earned in 1995 at the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy at MIT (Robert Stalnaker, chair), and I received my BA from the State University of New York at Stony Brook in 1990.
My first book is Knowledge and Practical Interestspublished in 2005 by Oxford University Press. It was the winner of the 2007 American Philosophical Association book prize. My second book, Language in Context, also OUP, was published in 2007. This is a collection of my papers in semantics published between 2000 and 2007 on the topic of linguistic communication and context. My third book, Know How, was published in 2011, also with OUP. My fourth book, How Propaganda Works, was published by Princeton University Press in May, 2015. It was the winner of the 2016 PROSE award for the subject area of philosophy. The proceeds from the sale of this book go to the Prison Policy Initiative. My fifth book is How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them(Penguin Random House, 2018).
Steve Benen is a producer on The Rachel Maddow Show and the author of The MaddowBlog. Benen’s articles and op-eds have appeared in the New York Times, Washington Monthly, The American Prospect, Salon.com, and other publications. For his work on TRMS, he has received two Emmy Awards, and has been nominated for four more. He is the author of The Impostors: How Republicans Quit Governing and Seized American Politics, a national bestseller. He lives in Vermont.
For as long as historical records have existed, authoritarian regimes have tried to rewrite history to suit their purposes, using their dictatorial powers to create myths, spread propaganda, justify decisions, erase opponents, and even dispose of crimes.
Today, as America’s Republican Party becomes increasingly radicalized, it’s not surprising to see the GOP read from a similarly despotic script. Indeed, the party is taking dangerous, aggressive steps to rewrite history—and not just from generations past. Unable to put a positive spin on Trump-era scandals and fiascos, GOP voices and their allies have grown determined to rewrite the stories of the last few years—from the 2020 election results and the horror of January 6th to their own legislative record—treating the recent past as an enemy to be overpowered, crushed, and conquered. The consequences for our future, in turn, are dramatic.
Extraordinarily timely and undeniably important, Steve Benen’s new book tells the staggering chronicle of the Republican party’s unsettling attempts at historical revisionism. It reveals not only how dependent they have grown on the tactic, but also how dangerous the consequences are if we allow the party to continue. The stakes, Benen argues, couldn’t be higher: the future of democracy hinges on both our accurate understanding of events and the end of alternative narratives that challenge reality.
Kimberly Wehle is an expert in constitutional law and the separation of powers, with particular emphasis on presidential power and administrative agencies. She is a tenured law professor at the University of Baltimore School of Law, where she teaches Constitutional Law, Civil Procedure, Administrative law, and Federal Courts. She is also a legal contributor for ABC News and regularly writes for Politico, The Atlantic, and The Bulwark. Winner of the University of Maryland System Board of Regents Award for excellence in scholarship, she also writes and comments on the Supreme Court, election law and voting rights. She was an Assistant United States Attorney in the Washington D.C. office and Associate Independent Counsel in the Whitewater Investigation. She is author of the books, What You Need to Know about Voting—and Why, How to Read The Constitution—and Why, and How to Think Like a Lawyer—and Why: A Common-Sense Guide to Everyday Dilemmas. Her forthcoming book, Pardon Power: How the Pardon System Works—and Why, is due out in September of 2. Kim is also the recipient of a 2024-2025 Fulbright US Scholar Award for the University of Leiden, The Netherlands.
Follow Kim on Twitter and Instagram, where she hosts an IGTV series called #SimplePolitics, in which she breaks down complex subjects on various legal and political issues in easily understandable language. A sought-out public speaker, Kim also served as an on-air legal analyst with CBS News during the first impeachment of former President Trump and has appeared regularly on numerous other networks, including CNN, NBC, BBC, Fox News, MSNBC, C-SPAN, NPR, PBS and Al Jazeera, and has written for The Guardian and the LA Times, among other publications.